Moments in You
by pinkiethebandit
Summary: Loving the avatar is fear and anger and longing and storm. Set after season 2 finale. Rated T for some swearing.


She'd catch him in the moment.

He'd open the evening newspaper, a scalding cup of black coffee poised midway between the table and his lips. Her face would frown up at him from under a bolded headline.

**Avatar Korra Thwarts Triads at Every Turn **

**Triads Issue Warning, Avatar Fires Back **

**District Attorney to Meet with Avatar Korra**

_Breathe,_ he'd remind himself.

He'd be in the break room chatting with another officer, the radio nothing but a pleasant drone behind them. Until her voice cut through to the forefront, strong and sure and _Korra_. "Republic City was founded as a haven for all, but how can it be when its citizens live in fear? This cannot continue. I will not allow this to continue."

_Breathe._

And every night he'd lie on his back with the ghost of her hands on him, lighting a fever in his veins.

_Breathe._

* * *

"Mako."

_Korra_.

_I love you. I'll always love you._

"How have you been?" he asked, standing.

She smiled, and it was a tired, sorry thing, and he wanted to lay her down and hold her until the world burned to black dust around them. "I've been better."

"Can I help?"

"Maybe. I've just been in to speak with Chief Beifong. The situation with the Triads is heating up, they're getting more and more aggressive. We need every officer on high alert."

"You can count on me."

"I know."

His hand twitched toward her. Jerked back down to his pocket. "Be careful, Korra. These guys are bad, a lot worse than you remember."

"I'll be careful."

It sounded so automatic, this time he couldn't stop himself. "Korra," he said, gripping her arms tight. "I mean it. They've got a new boss, and he doesn't play around like the last guy."

"I'll be careful."

* * *

She'd steal the breath from his chest.

Storming past his desk on her way to see the Chief, smashing open a stash house door, speaking out for justice in the middle of Republic City Park. But most of all when she came to him at the end of her longest days with defeat in the hunch of her shoulders and sorrow in the lines around her eyes.

"I couldn't save them. I couldn't do _anything_."

Her voice was tight and her eyes glinted. Mako pulled her closer, wishing she could stay here, warm and safe, cocooned in his blankets. "You've saved so many others already," he murmured into her hair.

"I know. It just doesn't feel like I'm doing enough."

"You're doing more than should ever be asked of a single person."

"I'm not just a person. I'm the avatar."

He smothered his anger as best he could, but the words still came out with an edge of tempered violence. "You're Korra, and that's pretty damn extraordinary. Avatar or no."

* * *

"You're making yourself a target!" he shouted.

"What do you want me to do? Lie down and let them take over the city?" she shouted back.

"I want you to let me and my department do our job!"

An ugly sound, more a laugh than it was anything else, escaped her. "Your department's going to be the first to go. It's already sick."

Mako's hands balled futilely. He willed them open. "The good cops still outnumber the dirty ones. We can take our city back."

"Yes, you can. But only if they've got something bigger to worry about."

It took a beat for what she was saying to sink in. When it did his vision turned red and his voice dropped low. "You're doing this on purpose?"

"I'm the biggest fish around. As long as they're focused on me, the little fish have a chance."

He was suffocating. He was drowning in her, in her strength, in her conviction, most of all in the vulnerability she refused to acknowledge.

He couldn't think with the fear and the anger and the love roiling around in his belly.

"Get out."

* * *

**Assassin Takes Aim at Avatar Outside City Hall**

Teeth clenched, Mako picked shards of his favorite coffee mug out of his palm.

Strangers steered clear of him all the way to headquarters. Maybe it was the blood-stained bandage around his right hand. Maybe it was the murder in his eyes.

"Where is she?"

Chief Beifong glared up at him from where she stood poring over a city map on her desk. She straightened.

"You read the article. She's recovering at a secure location."

"Bullshit. Where is she?" Belatedly, he added, "Chief."

The glare intensified. "In consideration of your past service and our personal history, I'm going to overlook that. Don't ever address me so informally again, Detective."

Mako took a deep, steadying breath. "Yes, ma'am. But, please, forget that I'm off-duty. Forget about confidentiality. She needs me."

The Chief mask slipped a fraction and the concern underneath struck at him with more force than her steel-bound fists ever could. "Dragon Flats. Back-up is already on the way."

* * *

His heart thundered as he raced past officers engaged in an all-out street fight, toward the white blaze coming from the center of Dragon Flats. A sentinel of light, she stood firm before a huddle of terrified families, arms crossed in an X. She faced a throng of mixed gangsters, only a handful of neighborhood benders ranged out beside her. The Triads concentrated the bulk of their attacks on her. Korra took hit after hit but gave not an inch.

Mako's blood boiled. His body flowed into the lighting form reflexively and electricity arced into the crowd, wilder, more demented than any he'd ever cast before. Before his mind could catch up, he was beside her launching fireball after fireball, giving her the break she needed to summon up an offense.

Korra stepped forward. A vortex of air whipped up around her and her arms pumped in a circular motion. The vortex grew as she drew nearer the gangsters. Some of them tried to flee, but the winds caught them and spit them out. They landed in heaps and piles on the stoops of nearby houses.

Before long, it was over. Mako caught her as the fight drained out of her and her knees buckled. She was shaking and so was he.

"You alright?" she managed.

_What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you keep doing this to yourself? To me? You've already saved the world from fucking apocalypse, haven't you done enough? _

"Fine," he grit out.

It was a mark of how exhausted she was that she let the lie go.

* * *

She'd carve out moments for him.

They were never enough, but he'd take the ones she could spare because he needed them almost as much as she did. He learned to banish the fear and the anger for just a few hours and let love fill him up, then breathe it into her. For a little while, the world could solve its own damn problems and Korra could be his, safe and warm.

After a while they stopped saying goodbye. He'd watch her get dressed in the dark. Then he'd put on a pot of coffee and she'd kiss him, bittersweet, like she had after the end of the world.

* * *

**AN:** Thank you for reading!

After that finale (_that finale!_) I felt compelled to write some Makorra. I hope it wasn't too ooc.

Thank you again!


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